It’s that time again: The 71st Berlin Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val is about to begin. Due to the pan­dem­ic, this year’s fes­ti­val will be divid­ed into two parts: a vir­tu­al indus­try event in March and an audi­ence fes­ti­val in June. We are delight­ed that fan­tas­tic pro­duc­tions fea­tur­ing the par­tic­i­pa­tion of numer­ous DFFB alum­ni will screen in the var­i­ous sec­tions.

Sec­tion: Encoun­ters

12 films, includ­ing 7 debut films, were invit­ed to the Encoun­ters com­pe­ti­tion, which is held for the sec­ond time this year.

One of these films is BLOODSUCKERS by direc­tor Julian Radl­maier, which will have its world pre­miere at the fes­ti­val. Togeth­er with fel­low alum­ni Kir­ill Krasovs­ki (pro­duc­er) and Markus Koob (cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er), Radlmaier’s film won­der­ful­ly recounts the sto­ry of a pen­ni­less Sovi­et refugee who falls in love with a young, wealthy Ger­man vam­pire who spends the sum­mer by the sea with her awk­ward assis­tant. Alexan­dre Koberidze, direc­tor and recent DFFB grad­u­ate, stars in BLOODSUCKERS.

THE GIRL AND THE SPIDER by Ramon and Sil­van Zürcher, who both stud­ied with at the DFFB, is a film from Switzer­land that is in the run­ning for the Best Film Award, the Best Direc­tor Award, and the Spe­cial Jury Prize. Alexan­der Haßk­erl (cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er) cap­tured this tragi­com­ic poet­ic bal­lad about change and tran­sience.

Sec­tion: Panora­ma

In this sec­tion DFFB alum­nus Mar­tin Heisler pro­duced Hen­ri­ka Kull’s fea­ture film BLISS, which vivid­ly tells the love sto­ry of two sex work­ers. This film will debut the Berli­nale.

Sec­tion: Per­spec­tive Ger­man Cin­e­ma

The doc­u­men­tary WHEN A FARM GOES AFLAME by alum­nus Jide Tom Akin­leminu will cel­e­brate its world pre­miere in the Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino. The film tells the per­son­al sto­ry of a father‘s dou­ble life and sen­si­tive­ly accom­pa­nies the char­ac­ters on their jour­ney of emo­tion­al heal­ing.

JESUS EGON CHRIST by David and Saša Vaj­da will have its world pre­miere at the Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino. DFFB stu­dent Anto­nia Lange is the cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er of this inti­mate dra­ma about the lone­li­ness of psy­chosis and a group of junkies in with­draw­al.

We con­grat­u­late our stu­dents and alum­ni and very much hope to see all the films on the big screen very soon!

Pho­to Cred­it: WHEN A FARM GOES AFLAME © Jide Tom Akin­leminu 

TALES FROM THE BLUE BUS — GESCHICHTEN AUS ACCRA tells of the trag­ic jour­ney of sev­en strangers trav­el­ling in an old blue bus that has been cursed by a venge­ful god­dess. The African-Euro­pean web series was joint­ly devel­oped and pro­duced by stu­dents of the DFFB, the Nation­al Film and Tele­vi­sion Insti­tute (Ghana), and the Maisha Film Lab (Ugan­da).

This film explores the process­es of change in soci­ety and the asso­ci­at­ed per­son­al chal­lenges that young peo­ple in West Africa face. The themes of iso­la­tion and respon­si­bil­i­ty bind all the episodes togeth­er. But the film lan­guage is fresh and vis­cer­al and cre­ates an extra­or­di­nary view­ing expe­ri­ence far away from the con­ven­tions of estab­lished reportage and glossy pro­duc­tions.

Entwick­elt wurde die Serie von 15 stu­den­tis­chen Filmemacher*innen aus Deutsch­land, Ghana und Ostafri­ka. In mehreren Devel­op­ment-Work­shops in Ghana und Ugan­da hat das Team – beste­hend aus jun­gen Filmemacher*innen aus Accra, Kam­pala und Berlin – zusam­men die Geschicht­en weit­er­en­twick­elt. Für die Umset­zung war ein Showrun­ner aus Ugan­da zuständig; die Regie ver­ant­worteten Studierende aus Ghana und Berlin. Das Filmteam vor Ort umfasste ca. 50 Studierende des NAFTI. Unter­stützt und gefördert wurde die Gruppe vom Bun­desmin­is­teri­um für wirtschaftliche Zusam­me­nar­beit und Entwick­lung und der Deutschen Welle Akademie.

The series was devel­oped by 15 stu­dent film­mak­ers from Ger­many, Ghana, and East Africa. In sev­er­al devel­op­ment work­shops in Ghana and Ugan­da, the team—comprising young film­mak­ers from Accra, Kam­pala, and Berlin—developed the sto­ries togeth­er. The showrun­ner is from Ugan­da; the direc­tors are stu­dents from Ghana and Berlin. The film team on loca­tion con­sist­ed of about 50 NAFTI stu­dents. The group was sup­port­ed and fund­ed by the Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry for Eco­nom­ic Coop­er­a­tion and Devel­op­ment and the Deutsche Welle Acad­e­my.

Click here to view the series. Enjoy!

The 54th Inter­na­tion­al Hofer Film Fes­ti­val has come to an end, and once again there were many offer­ings from the DFFB. “Home of Films” is the mot­to of the fes­ti­val, and it describes the suc­cess of our stu­dents and alum­ni well.

Two of our stu­dent films cel­e­brat­ed their world pre­miere at this fes­ti­val:

BABY BITCHKA (D: Anna Maria Roznows­ka, S: Anna Maria Roznows­ka & Tama­ra Erbe, C: Malte Siepen, P: Tama­ra Erbe) tells the sto­ry of Sascha (crazy, sexy, alco­holic, 23) who falls in love with Alexan­der (crazy, sexy, alco­holic, 60). It is the sto­ry of two peo­ple who fall in love with their alter egos.

DUC NGUYEN (D: Clara Zoe My-Linh von Arn­im, S: Sebas­t­ian Lad­wig, C: Raban Jakob Friedrich, P: Lucas Thiem & Jan­na Fodor) tells the sto­ry of three Ger­man-Viet­namese teenagers on a noc­tur­nal search for a motor­bike-rid­ing phan­tom who is cre­at­ing hav­oc on Berlin’s motor­ways…

LEIB (D/​S: Mar­i­jana Ver­hoef, C: Ley­la Hoppe, P: Ele­na Zur­buch & Elis­a­beth Köller) cel­e­brat­ed its Ger­man pre­miere in Hof. The film tells the sto­ry of a mys­te­ri­ous crea­ture who, as a farm­hand, appears in the life of an old wid­ow­er to help her on her farm. How­ev­er, when the crea­ture begins to devel­op human feel­ings, their lives take a dif­fer­ent turn.

DFFB alum­na and pro­duc­er Lena Vur­ma was award­ed the VGF’s high­est-endowed Ger­man prize for young pro­duc­ers, the VGF Young Pro­duc­er Award, worth 60,000 euros, for the pro­duc­tion of the fea­ture film ADVENTURES OF A MATHEMATICIAN.

DFFB alum­nus Mar­cus Lenz scored anoth­er suc­cess with his film RIVALE, which received the Förder­preis Neues Deutsches Kino for Best Film.

And last but not least, direc­tor Emi­ly Atef, also an alum­na of the DFFB, was award­ed the Hans-Vogt Film Prize from the city of Rehau, endowed with 5000 Euros. This prize is award­ed to film­mak­ers whose works are dis­tin­guished by their qual­i­ty and sig­nif­i­cance and that use film music in a unique way.

We are thrilled and warm­ly con­grat­u­late each of them!

It is with a heavy heart that the DFFB says good­bye to its alum­nus and for­mer lec­tur­er David Sla­ma. The film­mak­er died on Octo­ber 15 at the age of 74.

After study­ing with Michael Ball­haus and Peter Stein at the DFFB in Berlin, David Sla­ma worked as a cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er on more than 80 fea­ture and tele­vi­sion films, col­lab­o­rat­ing with Luc Bondy, Rein­hard Hauff, Harun Faroc­ki, and Mar­tin Scors­ese, among oth­ers. He is right­ly con­sid­ered one of the most impor­tant cin­e­matog­ra­phers in Ger­man-lan­guage film.

Par­al­lel to his artis­tic work, David Sla­ma taught at the DFFB, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ham­burg, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences Dort­mund, and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences Han­nover. In 2010, he was appoint­ed cin­e­matog­ra­phy pro­fes­sor at IFS Cologne. He was a mem­ber of the Ger­man Film Acad­e­my.

His enthu­si­asm for film­mak­ing and his great com­mit­ment to young film­mak­ers will be sore­ly missed.

In the com­ing aca­d­e­m­ic year, we will accept the new stu­dents who are cur­rent­ly under­go­ing the selec­tion process. This is part of the 2019 appli­ca­tion process, which had to be inter­rupt­ed due to the Coro­na Pan­dem­ic.

As a medi­um-term effect of the pan­dem­ic, there will be no appli­ca­tion pro­ce­dure at the DFFB in 2020.

Those who intend to study at the DFFB will find the appli­ca­tion mate­r­i­al for the fall 2022 pro­gramme on our web­site from Sep­tem­ber 2021.

To give you an idea of the DFFB in advance, we invite you to a dig­i­tal info day this autumn: date and pro­gramme will be announced short­ly.

Thank you very much for your under­stand­ing!